Screenwriter Scott Myers has built an archive of over 80 free, legal movie scripts on his blog. Have a look-see and pish away some hours. Happy reading.
The Putter
Meet 'Putter' Cliff Denton. Cliff works at Ernest Wright & Sons of Sheffield, the last remaining hand manufacturer of scissors.
Photographer Shaun Bloodsworth has done a great job documenting Cliff's craft as part of Storytelling Sheffield's 'Steel Stories' project. This short follows on from 'Barry Can't Arf Weld' which is also well worth a watch. Kudos to TheBlackDog for the music & sound design.
Mediocrity With An Occasional Invigorating Splash Of Ineptitude
Traditionally, today would be dominated by images of the England national football team manager's head paired with some kind of fruit or vegetable. Sadly, this year there is a distinct paucity of such. There are two possible reasons for this; one, our treasured national dailies are distracted by some other goings-on in the international footballing competition, or two, they're letting the current England head honcho off the hook, despite the team's worst performance since Harold MacMillan was Prime Minister, a performance ubiquitously English Establishment in character: Mediocrity With An Occasional Invigorating Splash Of Ineptitude. Either way, it falls to us here at Sell! Towers to hastily fill this Hodgson/veg-shaped void with the below poorly constructed effort. (I hope the sharply-minded viewer notes our use of that most English of vegetable, the commonly over-cooked and dissatisfying cauliflower.) Bravo England FA!
Moron-Fodder
The incessant witless repetition of advertisers' moron-fodder has become some much of a part of life that, if we are not careful, we forget not to be insulted by it.
Does that sentence strike a chord with anyone out there who thinks it might neatly summarise the state of advertising in 2014?
Whether it does or doesn't, you might be surprised to learn that it was a quotation taken from The London Times back in 1886.
Some things may have changed dramatically over the last 128 years but it's kind of frightening to think that our lives are still being polluted on a daily basis by the incessant witless repetition of advertisers' moron-fodder.
One of the most frustrating things about the advertising industry today is the widespread and tacit acceptance that creativity is some kind of hygiene factor that any agency can produce equally well.
All agencies may talk a very good game about putting the creative work first but the harsh reality behind this veneer is that there is often many other agendas getting in the way and stopping this from happening.
A quick snapshot of the soundbite-led media world doesn't really reveal that there are deep and significant problems within the advertising business.
It's easier to portray that the garden is rosy and that we live in an exciting age where there has never been more opportunities.
From the many soundings I've taken, creatives have never been more disenfranchised and frustrated. And many clients harbour feelings of mistrust and dissatisfaction about the way agencies operate and the quality/effectiveness of their end product.
Tenure rates are at an all-time low. And there's a big elephant in the room right now that the business is refusing to face up to.
For all the noise and chatter parroting it's all about the relationship, it's all about the relationship, nobody really seems to joining the dots and working out that poor quality, poor performing creative work is often really at the heart of the problem as to why things go wrong.
Sure, we can all fatalistically accept the status quo, blame each other and not bother to try to take responsibility to change things but, when it comes down to it, wouldn't any self-respecting person want to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem?
If you go into every project believing that moron-fodder is likely to be the inevitable outcome, then that is exactly what will happen and so the self-perpetuating cycle of shitness indefinitely continues.
If you go into every project full of passion, energy and resilience believing that you can really make a difference then maybe, just maybe, something other than moron-fodder will emerge.
Does that sentence strike a chord with anyone out there who thinks it might neatly summarise the state of advertising in 2014?
Whether it does or doesn't, you might be surprised to learn that it was a quotation taken from The London Times back in 1886.
Some things may have changed dramatically over the last 128 years but it's kind of frightening to think that our lives are still being polluted on a daily basis by the incessant witless repetition of advertisers' moron-fodder.
One of the most frustrating things about the advertising industry today is the widespread and tacit acceptance that creativity is some kind of hygiene factor that any agency can produce equally well.
All agencies may talk a very good game about putting the creative work first but the harsh reality behind this veneer is that there is often many other agendas getting in the way and stopping this from happening.
A quick snapshot of the soundbite-led media world doesn't really reveal that there are deep and significant problems within the advertising business.
It's easier to portray that the garden is rosy and that we live in an exciting age where there has never been more opportunities.
From the many soundings I've taken, creatives have never been more disenfranchised and frustrated. And many clients harbour feelings of mistrust and dissatisfaction about the way agencies operate and the quality/effectiveness of their end product.
Tenure rates are at an all-time low. And there's a big elephant in the room right now that the business is refusing to face up to.
For all the noise and chatter parroting it's all about the relationship, it's all about the relationship, nobody really seems to joining the dots and working out that poor quality, poor performing creative work is often really at the heart of the problem as to why things go wrong.
Sure, we can all fatalistically accept the status quo, blame each other and not bother to try to take responsibility to change things but, when it comes down to it, wouldn't any self-respecting person want to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem?
If you go into every project believing that moron-fodder is likely to be the inevitable outcome, then that is exactly what will happen and so the self-perpetuating cycle of shitness indefinitely continues.
If you go into every project full of passion, energy and resilience believing that you can really make a difference then maybe, just maybe, something other than moron-fodder will emerge.
OK-GO — The Writing's On The Wall
Brilliant music video for OK-GO featuring 4 minutes of mind bending visual conundrums. Each scene is performed live in camera, one after another. I can only imagine the planning that went into that.
Times New Roman
Our good friend Squa has just completed this lovely short documentary piece about the often overlooked typeface Times New Roman for The Times. With interviews with some well known and respected designers, typographers and artists, where they reveal their thoughts on the famous font.
Edited by Gavin Burridge, produced by Sacha Evans at Betsy Works, DOP Joel Devlin.
Learning By Doing
Well then. Kanye West, Jared Leto, Patrick Stewart and Sarah-Jessica Parker are all at Cannes imparting words of wisdom about creativity and all that.
You know what? I really couldn't give even the tiniest of shits.
Might as well be the Chuckle Brothers, Mr Tumble and Mr Blobby as far as I'm concerned.
I'm not remotely interested in what those celebrity speakers have to say. They represent a starfucking culture which values superficial buzz and hype above craft, expertise and substance.
The whole conference circuit has now turned into an industry in its own right. One that is becoming further and further removed from the reality of what it is like to create and produce great advertising that can help businesses grow.
At the other end of the spectrum we have influential, egg-headed theorists attempting to turn advertising into some kind of pseudo-science with book after book advocating this new trend or that new trend.
The creative gene pool has been polluted with the opinions of nonsense-spouting, bandwagon-jumping, nest-feathering snake oil salesmen.
There's so much poppycock and gobbledygook flying around filling peoples heads with shit by telling them what to think and how to do things, that we've almost forgotten the fine art of thinking for ourselves.
Most importantly of all though, I think we've forgotten that advertising isn't about theory. It's about practice. It's not about hypothesis. It's about doing.
Action not words.
Yes, it's vital to absorb outside influences and a wide range of inspiration like a sponge.
But when it comes down to it, a creative person has to get their thoughts down and put an idea on a piece of a paper.
Attending all the conferences in the world and reading all the Gladwell, Godin and Shirky in the world will never be a substitute for the cold, hard act of sitting down and having an idea yourself.
And it will be mainly by doing that over and over again, practising, practising, crafting, re-writing, crafting again that better ads will emerge.
Not because Kanye West, Sarah-Jessica Parker or some mouthy advertising blog gave you an invaluable nugget of wisdom that made you see the world differently.
As that bloke Aristotle, star of the Greek philosophy conference circuit, once said;
For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them.
You know what? I really couldn't give even the tiniest of shits.
Might as well be the Chuckle Brothers, Mr Tumble and Mr Blobby as far as I'm concerned.
I'm not remotely interested in what those celebrity speakers have to say. They represent a starfucking culture which values superficial buzz and hype above craft, expertise and substance.
The whole conference circuit has now turned into an industry in its own right. One that is becoming further and further removed from the reality of what it is like to create and produce great advertising that can help businesses grow.
At the other end of the spectrum we have influential, egg-headed theorists attempting to turn advertising into some kind of pseudo-science with book after book advocating this new trend or that new trend.
The creative gene pool has been polluted with the opinions of nonsense-spouting, bandwagon-jumping, nest-feathering snake oil salesmen.
There's so much poppycock and gobbledygook flying around filling peoples heads with shit by telling them what to think and how to do things, that we've almost forgotten the fine art of thinking for ourselves.
Most importantly of all though, I think we've forgotten that advertising isn't about theory. It's about practice. It's not about hypothesis. It's about doing.
Action not words.
Yes, it's vital to absorb outside influences and a wide range of inspiration like a sponge.
But when it comes down to it, a creative person has to get their thoughts down and put an idea on a piece of a paper.
Attending all the conferences in the world and reading all the Gladwell, Godin and Shirky in the world will never be a substitute for the cold, hard act of sitting down and having an idea yourself.
And it will be mainly by doing that over and over again, practising, practising, crafting, re-writing, crafting again that better ads will emerge.
Not because Kanye West, Sarah-Jessica Parker or some mouthy advertising blog gave you an invaluable nugget of wisdom that made you see the world differently.
As that bloke Aristotle, star of the Greek philosophy conference circuit, once said;
For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them.
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